


Strategy

by apiphile



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Chess, Foreshadowing, Gen, Metaphors, authorial obsession with rain, telepaths are a menace that must be stopped, wanky character development
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-09
Updated: 2011-06-09
Packaged: 2017-10-20 06:45:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/209879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apiphile/pseuds/apiphile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles & Erik play chess. It's hard to tell who wins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strategy

Four in the afternoon on a summer Thursday and the rain has died down to a belligerent mutter of water, strafing the pavements in chaotic bursts as heavier clouds pass overhead. Charles has not moved in fifteen minutes, and neither have any of the pieces on the chess board.

Erik pointedly disengages his mind from the game in front of him and looks out at the street instead. The patterns of rain on concrete slabs are mesmeric dances of gravity, transforming the unseen into the seen at the moment of crisis, as so many things do.

"Your move," Charles says, breaking through his reverie like a thrown knife, his voice gently impatient.

Erik resists for a long moment, long enough to reassure himself that the impetus to return to the game is his own rather than Charles's suggestion. He absorbs the patterns in the rain as if his mind is a sponge, closing his eyes and watching them dance behind his eyelids until the raindrops turn to flames.

 _Your move_ , Charles repeats inside his head.

He opens his eyes and stares not at the board, which he has memorised by now, but at Charles's unblinking eyes, trying to contain a surging forest fire of distaste. _Stay out_.

"You looked distracted," Charles says, aloud - an acknowledgement and an excuse, neither of which Erik wants or cares for.

The benefit of access to the facilities at the CIA, aside from confidential files, state-of-the-art experimental weapons, and a better and more regular quality of food than Erik Lensherr has become accustomed to, is the libraries. There are endless tomes of ancient to modern military strategy, shading into more esoteric approaches to warfare which fade into mere philosophy. Charles says it is important to consider all possible angles, and Erik is considering.

So far he has studiously avoided Nietzsche.

There is a foul taste in his mouth at the associations carried by the man's work, but more than this - there is an alluring undercurrent. He taps the spine of the book with his finger as he passes - _Menschliches, Allzumenschliches_ \- in a barely-conscious ritual reminder of abandonment. He reads instead of Wu Wei.

"Looks, as you well know, can be deceiving." Erik traces the patterns of the rain in his mind, leaving trails of fire in their wake, and takes Charles's queen without blinking.

"And deceit through looks, as _you_ well know, are meaningless around here," Charles says with a quick, bright smile, as he puts Erik in check.

Erik considers the circle. It doesn't start. It doesn't end. It is a symbol of continuity and unity and anger, while useful in hurling shipping chains around like sewing thread, has little use in chess. He considers the circle, and the falling rain, and concentrates on finding circles within circles in the patterns on the pavement.

He is acutely aware of the copper telephone cables passing through the ground beneath him, of the buttons on Charles's jacket, the nails in the fence post half a kilometer away; Erik considers the circle, the falling rain, the patterns, the concentric rings in Charles's eyes, the trails of fire behind his own eyelids, the iron content of blood, and with a twitch in his cheek he very, very calmly and very, very quietly disables the communications system for the entire centre and moves his king out of check.

"What's on your mind?" Charles asks, as soft and insideous as the rain.

"I shouldn't imagine that's a question you ever need ask," Erik replies. Circle. Rain. Patterns. Pavement. Circle. Fire. Copper wire. Iron filings. Blood. Circle. Rain.

"I would prefer that you told me."

The wind picks up, bending the tops of trees as if by an invisible hand, pressing its fingertips down onto their branches until they bend like slaves to its might.

Erik glances at the chess board - circle, rain, patterns, fire, blood, rain, circle - and realises with an unpleasant frisson that he can see the strategy Charles is applying, too late to avoid the consequences. He will be in mate in three moves no matter what he does, and Erik abandons the steady internal cycle of images to scold himself for not paying closer attention, so set on keeping Charles from seeing what _he_ was planing that he failed to see what Charles was doing.

"Erik?"

He stands. "I think you've won this one."

Charles nods. "It appears that I have."

Erik does not say anything about appearances. He simply scoops up his raincoat from the back of the chair and throws it over his arm, stepping out into the patterns of rain without touching the door. The iron content of blood, the concentric circles in Charles's eyes, and the knotted chords of copper communications cables are all forgetten in a sharp, tinny taste of despair, and he only remembers the game that he has just won.


End file.
